In Our View for Tuesday — February 01, 2005

• New ownership for The Garden Island

New ownership for The Garden Island

The Sunday announcement that The Garden Island was coming under the ownership of the Davenport, Iowabased newspaper chain Lee Enterprises was made night. Behind that announcement were months of searching for a buyer by the descendents of the illustrious journalist and editor Joseph Pulitzer, the founder of Pulitzer newspapers, as well as Pulitzer’s executives. The upcoming generation of Pulitzers haven’t gravitated to journalism, and the Pulitzers who hold the majority of the stock in the company decided it was best all the way around if the family divested themselves of the newspaper business.

The decision was a hard one for the Pulitzers. The family has been intertwined with the world of journalism in the United States for well over 100 years, and their business is doing well financially.

Selling the Pulitzer group of newspapers which insense in many ways. The company is focused on community journalism, and its rural roots in Iowa fit well with the rural lifestyle of Kaua‘i. In a call to Pulitzer editors from across the country the new owners promised to continue their policy of independent editorial control at their newlyacquired newspapers.

For employees of The Garden Island, it was heartening to hear that Lee Enterprises will be keeping them at their jobs, and that the daily flow of work will continue as it has under the Pulitzer banner. In general the direction, worker benefits and the general daytoday work of publishing a daily newspaper will continue uninterrupted.

In the area of online publishing watch for advances in The Garden Island’s news coverage on the Web. Lee sees the online news world as second only to the daily newspaper in presenting the news to communities. They are focused strongly in this area and the company’s expertise in this area will be a benefit to the Kaua‘i community.